CM tells officials to work out strategies to make farming profitable

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Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has asked officials of Agriculture and allied departments to work out strategies to make farming a profitable vocation by ensuring minimum support price to every crop, maximum procurement by the Marketing Department and preventing market transactions at less than support price.

It was necessary as the production all major crops cultivated in the State would go up in the coming years as the government was developing irrigation sector with an aim to bring 1.25 crore acres land under irrigation, he said at a review meeting held here on Tuesday with the officials of Agriculture, Horticulture, Marketing, Civil Supplies department and Agriculture University.

He asked the officials to come to proper understanding on food consumption and cropping patterns, what kind of crops were being cultivated, what was being supplied from other States, what should be cultivated and what would improve the income of farmers by conducting a field-oriented survey for 10 days.

Crop colonies could be designed only with such specific information so that support price was also ensured to the produce, the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister said government would stand guarantee to mobilisation of funds by the Marketing Department for procurement operations of all crops. Procurement by the department would not only make the environment competitive but would also ensure better price to the farmers’ produce, he said adding that the department should also explore the options of supplying surplus produce to other States and countries.

Stating that farmers would always prefer selling their produce to government agencies, the Chief Minister noted that the rythu samanvaya samithis should ensure that the produce was brought to the market yards village-wise as per a schedule decided in advance. Care should also be taken to make payment, cheques or online transfer, to farmers within minutes of disposal of their produce, he suggested.

He told the officials that the Centre too had asked the Ministry of Agriculture recently to work on setting up crop colonies on the lines of plans being made by Telangana government. He hoped that the Centre would also make a positive thinking on ensuring support price to all agriculture produce.